


Two midsummer letters unsent

by okapi



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Community: story-works, Crafts, Epistolary, Fluff, M/M, Midsummer Night's Dream, Music, Sherlock Holmes's Retirement, Sussex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 08:18:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19372828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: Holmes & Watson write letters to each other, anticipating mid-summer in Sussex.ACD. Retirement!lock. Epistolary. Fluff. For story-works flash challenge: midsummer/midwinter magic





	Two midsummer letters unsent

**Author's Note:**

> Here is one recording of Mendelssohn's [A Midsummer's Night Dream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqOY-02XAFk&t=973s) op. 61.
> 
> Watson's fairy creations can be found in [Fairy House: How to Make Amazing Fairy Furniture, Miniatures, and More from Natural Materials](https://www.amazon.com/Fairy-House-Furniture-Miniatures-Materials/dp/1939629691) by Mike and Debbie Schramer.

My dearest Watson,

It is highly likely that you shall hear the contents of this letter recited to you from the author’s own lips for the hour is very late and I will soon embark on a journey whose final destination is your welcoming embrace. Regardless, I feel compelled to put pen to paper if for no more noble purpose than to fritter away the minutes before I may be allowed to exchange a comfortable hotel room from a less comfortable train car, satisfied in the notion that I am on my way home, that is, of course, to you.

You were quite correct in remaining at the cottage. The London metropolis holds many delights, but for a man who is still nursing a badly twisted ankle, it is fraught with just as many dangers. I am happy to report that I have collected all the items on your list. An additional cart at the station will not go amiss, laden with trove as I am. If the weather there is as wet and unfavorable as predicted, I hope you are taking advantage of the involuntary exile from your precious garden and keeping that leg elevated! I shall say no more on the matter. In some hours, I will be in a much better to position to judge how well you are following your own instructions.

Mycroft sends his best. Of course, he had a fine table set for me, but the highlight of the visit was the play, and more specifically, the accompanying music. Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Mendelssohn! I believe that you and I once attended an afternoon concert which featured the overture; it was at the conclusion of the Addison affair, was it not? The overture was part of the program, but this was a larger collection of incidental music to accompany the drama.

And it was, in a word, splendid.

I confess I gave little attention to the production itself. I spent most of the time with my eyes closed and my fingers steepled at my lips, thoroughly engrossed in the wondrous sounds. The orchestra’s performance was nothing short of magnificent, and I thoroughly enjoyed ever note.

Now I must admit to a second compelling reason for my writing: confessions are always easier this way. Can you conceive of what images surfaced in my mind as I sat listening?

Your fairies!

I have made a point of not showing too keen an interest in your hobby, my dear man, beyond a word or two of encouragement, which are no the less sincere for being infrequent, and pointing out bits of detritus on our country rambles which might make useful construction materials.

A person might be forgiven for thinking that building tiny furnishings out of bark and twigs and dried flowers is a strange art, but they would do so only until they were privileged to view one of your creations, Watson, and then it would be no longer strange but simply marvelous. I admire your fairy works more than I’ve ever admitted aloud, and the proof, should you require it, is that when I closed my eyes this evening and listened to the magic of Mendelssohn, my mind’s eye could not help conjuring the magic of Watson as well.

I saw the fairy gardeners toiling happily in their fairy garden, the miniature of your own that you assembled from moss, twigs, stones, bark and dried buds. The fairies drew water from their fairy well with their fairy bucket. I saw the pretty archway and the dainty stone-paved path.

You once wrote in your famous chronicles about my delicacy of touch, but I must say, my dear man, to work on such a small scale and to create the likes of those diminutive garden implements, watering can, hoe, and rake, well, it begs belief. The Waterson girls are convinced that fairies come and assist you in the night, and I cannot say that I blame them in their assumption.

But back to the concert. When the fairies of my reverie tired of tending their plot, they, quite naturally, had a tea party beneath a wide canopy of hydrangea and larkspur blooms. The chairs were made of twigs and bark and decorated with moss. The tea things were bits of shell and seed and stone. There were even jars of honey! And bowls of strawberries! And cake! It was the grandest of fetes!

I returned to the hotel positively floating on air, or perhaps gossamer wings, and the only cloud in the sky was that you, my dear man, were not by my side. My dear brother, however, had mitigated that regret to some degree. Before I left for the theatre, he presented me with a gramophone record, which we shall be able to enjoy together when I return. Calling in a few favours, I have also obtained some parts of score, the ones that are most suitable for a soloist violinist. I look forward to bringing to you as much of the beauty of this experience as possible.

I know you have something special planned for your fairy friends for the summer solstice, and I am hurrying back to Sussex and the cottage so as to spend the longest day of the year with you—and perhaps add to the festivities with a bit of my own midsummer enchantment.

Until then, I remain, ever and always, your devoted,

Holmes

Post Script. I trust that you are carrying out my instructions and regaling the hives each morning with the news of the day. A pox shall be upon our honey if they are left ignorant of domestic, local and world affairs!

* * *

My dearest Holmes,

I will begin by setting your mind at ease: the bees are quite well, and so am I. I;m finding the experience of reading the morning newspaper to them to be a singular but not at all an unpleasant one. The day that you left for London the weather was exceptionally fine, and despite the necessity of the crutch, I was able to get about the garden and do what needed doing.

And the days are so blessedly long! I stayed out, pottering about in my Eden, as you call it, until the sun advised me it was time to retire. All the while, I’ll admit that I felt a presence, perhaps it was that of the most diligent of the garden fairies, urging me to do a bit more while the weather held, one more spot of weeding, one more bit of trimming, one more.

Of course, the following morning, I realised that ‘what needed doing’ and ‘one more’ were, perhaps, a bit more than was my customary effort. I woke with a frustrating array of sore muscles, stiff joints, and slowness of gait. Nevertheless, I soldiered on.

The dark clouds that you had predicted showed up right after breakfast, and no sooner had I folded the newspaper after recounting the last of the news of the world to the bees than I was hurriedly hobbling towards the cottage, crutch under one arm and newspaper overhead, serving as makeshift umbrella.

I made it inside just before the sky collapsed into torrents of rain.

Ordinarily, as you well know, I would be vexed to be forced indoors on such a day, but this time, I welcomed the exile. As soon as you left, I moved my horde, as you so fondly call it, to the living room. Having the space greedily to all to myself, I was able to make like Hans Slone, or perhaps your unfortunate client Nathan Garrideb, and arrange my collection of materials, twigs, moss, dried flowers, bark, shells, etcetera, as was most convenient. I gathered my tools and, hearing your censorious voice in my head, propped my treacherous foot up, and went to work.

And I confess I have been at it ever since.

For you see, the night prior I had had the most wonderful inspiration with regard to my hobby. You know that I do like to put together something special for the summer solstice, but the muse has been stubbornly absent of late.

Well, no more!

Even though I shall see you in less than a day, I think it will aid me to put my vision into words. I am drafting the libretto as I go about the assembly and wait for the glues to dry.

_A poet fairy sits at a writing desk. The fairy is composing a poem about a child who makes a wish at a wishing well, and as a result, a pirate fairy is compelled to sail a fairy boat to the child’s home, where a celebration awaits the newcomer’s arrival._

The poet’s writing desk and chair are drying as I write. The wishing well is slated to be a larger, more elaborate version of the one beside the miniature garden, but the real gem will be the boat. I shall use a bit of everything we collected on our last walk, and the figurehead will be that curious shell you spotted. It is, as you pointed out, rather perfect.

And I have a surprise planned, too. The pirate fairy does not use the stars for navigation, but rather relies on apian first mates who have excellent senses of direction and are drawn by the scent of the faraway flowers.

All this, of course, serves to distract me from the absence of you. It has struck me that when you leave you take the music of life with you. I eagerly await the return of both.

Yours,

Watson

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
